“Jaws was something of an accidental blockbuster. It should not be blamed for being a good movie.” — Joseph McBride

The Digital Bits is pleased to present this retrospective commemorating the 40th anniversary of the release of Jaws, Steven Spielberg’s legendary tale of a Great White preying on a coastal New England resort community during the lucrative summer tourism season.

Based upon Peter Benchley’s best-selling novel and starring Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss, Jaws shattered all existing box-office records, scared the wits out of beachgoers, and became every studio’s dream model of a summer blockbuster (and, in some circles, a whipping boy for popular, successful movies). [Read on here…]

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Today’s post is a quick one, as I have family visiting this weekend. However, we do have a couple things for you today…

If it can be difficult to remember who won the Academy Award for Best Picture, it’s downright mind-bending trying to remember everything else it was up against. In An Honor To Be Nominated, I’ll be taking a look back at some of the movies the Oscar didn’t go to and trying to determine if they were robbed, if the Academy got it right, or if they should ever have been nominated in the first place.[Read on here…]

Out August 14 by Universal and on Blu-ray for the first time, Jaws remains one of the best thrillers ever made. This, despite the fact the production was filled with troubles. Or, perhaps, because of the malfunction of the mechanical shark and the complexity of filming on the ocean, the movie benefited from the problems. Thirty-seven years after its initial theatrical release, Jaws has been beautifully restored on Blu-ray looking even better than what audiences saw in 1975.